


Try again, for the Captain

by lunaemoth



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dimension Travel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Happy Ending, Starfleet Academy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-09 18:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18922282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaemoth/pseuds/lunaemoth
Summary: Control has escaped the Discovery crew and jumped into an alternate universe (with a few years gap for added effect). Lieutenant Commander Tilly, one of the last left, has been brought along for the ride. It's her mission to save Christopher Pike, instructor at the Starfleet Academy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NB: I'm French and this hasn't been edited by a beta. If there is an issue, feel free to comment with a correction.

“Another?” the barman asked.

Sylvia was extremely tempted to agree, but she had promised herself: no more than one glass of alcohol. Now, she was extremely bad at self-control, her consumption of coffee was proof enough, but this was different. This was a mission she couldn’t fuck up and so… her conscience won.

“Uh, no. No more alcohol. It’s bad for focus. Just… uh… give me a soda or something? … with caffeine. Yeah, just give me a Coke.” Her body would hate her later when she tried to sleep. She should also be ashamed: she had been so good at regulating her consumption lately, but exceptions had to be made for special occasions. Like a manhunt. A hunt which required her constant vigilance.

She startled as someone brushed by her to order drinks to the barman. Grabbing her glass of soda to regain her composure, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that she hadn’t been distracted badly enough that her target had gotten away. She blanched when she realized that he had in fact disappeared from the group of Starfleet officers chatting in a booth.

“Hello.”

She spun around and pressed a hand to her chest in fright. Christopher Pike was right next to her, leaning sideways with an elbow on the counter and his hands intertwined. He looked extremely amused by her reaction. She had forgotten how terribly disarming his smile was.

“Oh, h-hi,” she replied automatically. Internally, she was panicking. The plan had been simple. The first steps had been: A) find Pike (success), B) follow Pike (she had been doing fine until now), C) don’t be noticed (failure… but it might still be salvageable!).

“I noticed you staring.”

Ok. No. That was a perfect fail. Well done, Tilly. You fucked up, and it wasn’t even the hardest part of the plan!

“Oh, well,” she chuckled nervously. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable or anything. It’s just, well… You’re you… Obviously… I mean...” Somehow, he made her regressed to a time when she was always stammering and babbling. She breathed in and breathed out by the nose, using the many tricks she had learned to calm herself and focus. This was still salvageable. A little calmer, she straightened and smiled. “Captain Christopher Pike: one of the most decorated Starfleet officers. I might have been a little awestruck.”

“You have me at a disadvantage. I’m afraid I don’t recognize you.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t. I’m Lily Burnham, engineer from Starfleet Corps,” she explained, using her cover identity for the mission. She would easily admit she hadn’t looked far for inspiration. She needed a name which sounded familiar and one who reminded her why she had to keep going.

“Pleased to meet you,” Pike replied, ever the gentleman. He offered her his hand (such a perfect, well-manicured hand with long fingers and beautiful nail beds…). She had to force herself to stay calm and collected as she shook the hand of a man she admired so much and hadn’t seen in years… even if he wasn’t the same she had worked with and this one didn’t know her. Oh, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed him until now.

“All the pleasure is mine,” she replied honestly.   

“I don’t remember seeing you around here,” he said before chuckling and shaking his head, “not that I come here often enough to know the regulars.”

“Neither do I,” she replied quickly. “I just arrived in town actually, back from space…” She waved toward the ceiling and immediately felt silly for it, clenching both hands around her glass to avoid any inopportune hand gestures.

“Where were you?”

“Oh, the Luna shipyards,” she replied, choosing somewhere she had gone to (although it had been years ago, during a school trip in her Academy years) so she could follow up on any question about it. “Nothing very interesting, I’m afraid.”

“I like those shipyards, if only for the view.”

“Yes, it’s awesome!” During her trip, she had spent hours marveling about the view of Earth from the shipyard. The other cadets had pretended to be unimpressed, so it was a welcomed change to hear someone admit how great it was. “Actually I…” She chuckled self-deprecatingly and immediately bit her tongue before she could tell this embarrassing story.

Pike, who had taken a seat sometime during the conversation, tilted his head in interest. “Yes?”

Damn it. She couldn’t resist those earnest eyes. “Don’t tell anyone?” she pleaded before biting her bottom lip.

“This is between us,” he said, smiling.

“I might have…” She coughed and hid behind her fist as she blurted out: “I might have cheated and hacked into the administrative system to get a room with a view.”

Pike burst into laughter, rested his chin on his fist supported by his elbow and shot her a grin with a tilted head. He looked absurdly good. “That might be one of the cutest reasons for a hack I have heard about… and I have heard a lot, considering I’m teaching a bunch of cadets who invent new, dubious ways to impress the galaxy every friday night.”

She grinned sheepishly.

“Listen,” he said while glancing at the tray of drinks waiting for him. The barman had put them down a few minutes ago, and Pike had paid distractedly, focused on her. “I have to bring this to the parched officers over there. Want to join us?” he asked while pointing at his friends.

Sylvia tensed and glanced at the group. Apart from the fact that she didn’t know most of those high-ranking people, Katrina Cornwell was among them. Being anywhere near her would be a bad idea due to the fact that she was one of her role-models and most importantly a great therapist, someone who analyzed people for a living. Yeah… No, that was a terrible idea.

“Sorry, but I… I’m just an engineer, I wouldn’t feel comfortable,” she admitted, opting for a half-truth.  

“Ok,” Pike agreed easily, and she was grateful he didn’t push. “Would it be all right if I came back?”

That… that was an overture if she had ever heard one. In fact, that was the most polite and gentlemanly overture she had ever received, giving her the opportunity to dismiss his interest easily. Momentarily stunned, she had to do a brain reboot. Two facts immediately came to mind: 1) one of her crushes was interested in her, which was unbelievable and completely awesome, 2) it was a terrible, terrible idea to get involved with her target, damn it!

“I’d like that,” she heard herself reply.

He grinned and grabbed the tray. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Once alone, she buried her face in her hands and murmured to herself an “Oh, hell.” The plan was indeed shot to hell. Pike had just offered to spend the evening with her instead of his friends, and she had agreed! She was going to hyperventilate.

Breathing in deeply to calm down, she took a compact mirror from a pocket of her long, black coat and checked her reflection. Her hair, straightened into long locks of strawberry blond, was perfect (just for that, it would be tempting to always straighten it, but it took way too long and she liked her curls… sometimes). When she had realized she needed to change her appearance, her first thought had been about her mirror counterpart and her killer look of confidence. The makeup was heavier than she prefered, but there was no doubt she looked good.

She put her mirror back in her pocket, pulled on her top to adjust her cleavage and straightened. She could do this.

“All yours,” Pike said a moment later as he settled by her side with a charming smile.

She chuckled at those words which gave her terribly inappropriate ideas. To get those out of her head, she started to babble: “So, the Luna shipyards? Pretty cool, uh? Even better than the one in Earth’s orbit.” She twirled a finger toward the ceiling without realizing, too focused on saying nothing stupid to worry about the free will of her index. “But you know the one I’d like to visit? Starbase 33. It’s near a...”

“... Nebula,” Pike finished with a nod.

“Yeah, but not any kind of nebula! It’s the Helix Nebula, the Eye of Sauron, like, my favorite nebula ever!”

“You have a favorite nebula?”

“Of course! Don’t you?”

He laughed and grinned. “I love them all indiscriminately.”

“Aww.”

“But Starbase 33 has one of the best views out there,” he admitted.

“You visited it? Tell me!”

Pike indulged her curiosity with good humor, giving her an overview of the most beautiful places he had visited. She had to bite her tongue a few times to avoid breaking her cover as someone who had never done much space travel, but she didn’t need to fake her interest in his stories. He was a good storyteller and… well… she loved his voice. He could talk to her about regulations and she would be happy to listen. His students were lucky bastards to have such a teacher. She wished she had him as a teacher (she’d certainly have daydreamed a bit too much)!

They were brought out of their conversation when Katrina Cornwell stopped behind Pike and brushed his shoulder to catch his attention. “We’re leaving, Chris,” she said. “Are you coming or staying?”

“I’ll stay a little longer,” he replied without hesitation.

“All right. See you tomorrow,” Cornwell replied. She left after a nod of greeting to Sylvia who gave her an awkward smile.

“I didn’t realize it was already so late,” Pike admitted, glancing at his watch.

“Me neither,” Sylvia replied after doing the same. It was past midnight. For a friday night, it could be worse, though.

“I might as well stay up. I have a feeling I’ll soon get a call to fetch a few cadets, anyway.”

“Are they that bad?”

“Well… Let’s say that I have a special case this year… He doesn’t have his head straight on yet. He’s getting better, though: it has been two months since I didn’t get a call… which unfortunately means it’s overdue.”

“Wow, he sounds like a handful.”

“He is, but worth it on the long term, I’m sure,” he said fondly before taking a sip of his drink.

She smiled softly. When he looked up and noticed it, he raised a questioning eyebrow.

“He’s lucky to have your faith then.”

Of all things, this seemed to fluster him.

“We all deserve a chance and someone to believe in us.”

“I agree.”

He shifted and pulled a ringing communicator out of a pocket. “Even earlier than planned. Damn.” After hearing the message, he shook his head and gave her a soft smile. “Sorry, I have to go.”

“Of course, it’s fine. I should leave too.”

He stood up and offered her a hand. She was grateful for it: in her distraction, she had forgotten she was wearing boots with higher heels than her usual uniform, and she would have stumbled without his support. Great. She was so talented to embarrass herself.

They left the bar together and paused on the sidewalk.

“I enjoyed our talk. I’d like to see you again.”

She should have refused and focus on the mission, but all that came out was an embarrassingly eager: “Oh, oh, yeah, me too.”

He stared at her expectantly with his communicator in hand and then grinned when she didn’t react. “May I have your contact?”

She blushed brightly and fumbled for her own comm. “Oh! Yes, yes, of course.”

The contact exchange was done remotely, but Pike purposefully let their hands brush before bidding her a good night.

Sylvia watched him leave until his cab disappeared and she was suddenly reminded she wasn’t supposed to let him out of her sight. “Damn it,” she cursed and ran to get another taxi. Fortunately, she had heard the name of the nightclub where Pike had to pick up his ward. It was easy enough to catch up, just in time to see him drag out a young blond man followed by a few other cadets. She groaned in her hands when she recognized them. The special case apparently was James goddamn Kirk, and among the cadets following him, there was an unmistakable tuff of red curly hair.

This alternate universe was suddenly much less cool than she had thought when she had arrived. And her lapse in judgement tonight was way worse than she thought. If Pike was the teacher of Cadet Sylvia Tilly then… then it was a wonder that he hadn’t recognized her (watching her right now being all awkward and shy, this alternate Tilly probably stayed in the background like she had done her first year too, before she had gotten the nerve to stand up for herself), and she shouldn’t push her luck.

She winced, stared at the contact named “Christopher Pike” in her directory (she had his goddamn private number!) and blocked it while making a face the whole time. It would be selfish of her to let a relationship develop. Tears stung her eyes as she reminded herself this was for the greater good. Everything she did was for something much more important than herself. She couldn't let herself falter. This wasn't about her. This was about the safety of all sentient lives.

Damn it.

 

oOo

 

Christopher was tapping his desk thoughtfully. He had tried to call Lily Burnham for the third time in two days and had immediately ended up on voicemail. Every message he had sent was without an answer. He didn’t like the various options which could explain this.

“What’s on your mind?” Katrina asked as she stepped into his office without bothering to knock on the open door.

Chris made a face. His friend immediately closed the door while raising an eyebrow. Resistance was pointless. She sat down in an armchair in front of his desk while he admitted that his last date was apparently a dead end.

“I’m trying to convince myself not to abuse my powers and look her up in the database,” he admitted, pinching his nose.

“She said she was Starfleet?”

“Yeah. Engineer Corps.”

“Well, the employee register is public,” she pointed out with a smirk.

“You, enabler,” he said fondly and immediately looked for his elusive Lily. After a moment, he frowned.

“Something wrong?” Kat asked, going around the desk to lean beside him.

“It’s her,” he said while pointing at the picture of the curvy blond.

“I remember. Lily Burnham, born 2225 — only six years younger than you, Ross owes me a drink.” When Chris turned toward her in askance, she explained: “He was thinking she was ten years younger than you, I said five.”

“It’s good to know that you kept yourself entertained for the evening.”

“Of course. You left us, we had to make do without you. Now, what’s wrong? She didn’t lie about her identity so she most likely just changed her mind about — Oh.” She had noticed what had caught his attention.

To an inattentive eye, there was nothing out of the ordinary in the register, but there was a piece of information missing: the name of Lily’s superior officer. She appeared to be completely out of the hierarchy.

“Look into the database,” Kat ordered.

Only waiting for her approval, Chris pulled up Lily Burnham’s file. Again, at first glance, everything seemed quite ordinary, but…

“It’s fake,” they realized at the same time.

There were no official reports from superior officers or even teachers from her Academy days. It was a ghost file, with no outside link with any other, no superior officers, no relatives, nothing.

“What did you stumble on, Chris?” Kat murmured thoughtfully.

Before he could find something to reply to that, Chris’ phone rang. His eyebrows rose as he read the name of his charming little ghost. “Well, look at that.” After a glance at Kat (and was he glad that she was here to help him make sense of it), he accepted the call which he put on speaker. “Christopher Pike,” he replied professionally.

“Leave your office.”

“I beg your pardon?” He didn’t know what he had expected, but certainly not that.

“Chris, I know you have questions, but if you want your pretty head to stay on your shoulders I need you to get out of your office, now, because you’re being hunted by someone who wants what’s in your head whether or not your cooperate. Get out NOW. You have twenty seconds before she reaches your floor.”

Katrina pulled on his shoulder before he could decide if he wanted to believe this torrent of information or not. He had found her talking habits quite cute at the bar, but in those circumstances, he was less fond of it.

“I’m leaving,” he said aloud while grabbing his communicator and hitting the dead switch on his computer (if this was a false alert, he would get an earful by maintenance, but better safe than sorry).

“She’s in the elevator. Take the stairs.”

Katrina pushed him toward the staircase and grabbed the first person they crossed in the hallway, probably to get some form of backup. Chris jogged to the staircase while holding the comm to his mouth.

“Lily, or whatever your name is, I’d like an explanation.”

“I’m sorry Chris. I wasn’t supposed to get involved with you. I just had to keep an eye on you until she showed up.”

“Who is ‘she’?” This was far from the only question he had, but he had to prioritize. Right now, he was jogging down the stairs and trying to assess the threat. The details could wait.

“She… She’s an IA, an extremely dangerous one, Chris. If she touches you, it’s over. For you… and everyone else.”

“Okay. What does she look like?” he asked while Kat caught up to him.

“Philippa Georgiou.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. She looks like Captain Philippa Georgiou.”

“Captain Georgiou is in the Beta Quadrant,” Kat pointed out.

“Good for her. She would have been killed by now if she had been on Earth.”

“A lookalike?” Chris asked.

“Something like that.”

Katrina’s communicator rang. She accepted the call on speaker immediately: “Yes?”

“Admiral. The individual who came out of the elevator is Captain Georgiou. She went into Captain Pike’s office as you expected,” Commander Spock said stiffly. “Sir, isn’t Captain Georgiou supposed to be in the—”

“Yes, she is,” Katrina confirmed sharply.

“She’s coming out… She’s going toward the stairs.”

“Shit,” Kat breathed and they both sped up.

“Take the first door you see,” Lily ordered. “Don’t let her see you!”

“Admiral. Your orders?” Spock asked.

“Alert security. The Georgiou on campus is a high-security threat,” Katrina said.

“Right away, Sir. I’ll be following at a distance. Spock, out.”

“On what floor are you?” Lily asked.

“Floor four,” Chris answered, jogging with Kat toward the elevators at the other end of the hallway.

“I’m on the ground floor. I have to warn you, phasers won’t do anything to her. She’s 90% nanobots by now, they’ll compensate for any damage caused.”

“Nanobots? What the hell, Lily?”   

“I know. It’s a mess. We had to create a gun just for her so… don’t freak out if I shoot, it won’t hurt anyone… it might just short-circuit the whole campus. No big deal, right?”

Kat and Chris exchanged looks as they stepped inside an elevator and called for the ground floor. When they turned around, they were met by the dark gaze of Philippa Georgiou. She… wasn’t like the amicable Philippa that Chris knew and liked.

“We’re in the elevator, but she saw us,” Chris warned.

“Damn it,” Lily breathed. “Get out on the next floor.”

“Why? She won’t have time to catch up.”

“Chris, she’ll take control of the elevator and you’ll be stuck! Get out, now!”

They stopped the elevator on the second floor and got out in the middle of students.

“We’re on a floor full of cadets. Now what?” Chris asked, worried this would get out of hand.

“The windows. Jump on the roof of the veranda.”

Chris glanced at Kat, who shrugged and opened the first window in reach. “You have to be kidding me,” he muttered, well aware of the looks they were getting. He and Kat were past the age and rank for such acrobatics in public. No doubt the news would be all over campus in a few hours, pictures included.

“Captain Pike?” someone called.

He looked over his shoulder to realize that this was the class of Jim Kirk. The little genius came forward with a frown. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” Chris replied shortly.

“Can we help?”

“Sure, if you can get this elevator shut down…”

“I’m on it!” a girl volunteered immediately. Chris was climbing on the windowsill — Katrina had already jumped — and he just caught sight of the red-haired’s profile, but the voice was enough to remind him why Lily had looked familiar.

“And get out of the building before it gets out of hand,” he said before jumping.

Upon landing, his knees and ankles angrily informed him that they hated him. He cursed and went to the edge so he could jump to the ground. Katrina was waiting for him, looking up at where they came from. Her eyes widened. Chris followed her eyes to see Georgiou jump after them from the fourth floor. She landed standing, and her body didn’t seem to hate her at all for it.

“Yep. Not human,” he concluded.

“Come on, Chris!” Kat shouted.

They jumped together. This time, his whole body hated him, and even though he rolled with the movement, he needed a few seconds to stand up. While their pursuer jumped and stayed on her feet, walking toward him with barely a pause.

“Chris!” Kat shouted in worry.

He could hear security running toward them and bystanders murmuring in bewilderment and worry. He stumbled on his feet and took a step back, but already Georgiou was two steps away and Lily’s warning came to mind: “If she touches you, it’s over, for you and everyone else.”

A ball of blue light hit Georgiou, freezing her in place. She fell to one knee.

Chris took two steps back. He saw her in the corner of his eye. Lily.

She was holding some sort of heavy rifle and reloading it urgently.

Georgiou looked at her with a sneer. “You,” she hissed. “Kill me and you’re stuck here. You can’t go back without me! I led you here!”  

Lily pursed her lips, but her eyes were focused on her charging gun. When it blinked to announce it was operational, Lily stared at her target, breathed in and exhaled an “I know” a second before shooting.

At the new hit, Georgiou fell into dust, or what looked like it but was probably the famous nanobots.

Lily stepped forward, adjusting her rifle, disassembling it and reassembling it into a whole new instrument who looked more like a vacuum cleaner. Case in fact, the dust was promptly vacuumed into a glass cage which was soon shining blue.

“I’m in control,” Lily breathed.

When she looked up, her eyes didn’t have the shine of the victor. On the contrary, her shoulders fell as if all fight had left her. 


	2. Chapter 2

Christopher stepped into the interrogation room where “Lily Burnham” had been brought for the tenth time in two weeks. He sat down opposite her, crossed his hands over the table and smiled softly.

“Sylvia Tilly.” He huffed and gestured at his own hair. “It’s a bit more obvious now.”

“I can imagine,” Sylvia agreed while patting her curls. The strawberry blond color stayed, but the straightening had passed and her curls were back with a vengeance. Her hair probably looked like a mess. It wasn’t her first priority. After two weeks in detention, she was just glad she had been granted toiletries and entertainment. “I’m sorry I lied to you, but well…”

“Alternate universe.”

“Yes... that.”

Chris nodded slowly. He hadn’t been the one to interrogate her. This was the first time they were meeting after she had been taken into custody, but he had read every report. He knew that this Sylvia came from an alternate universe, that she had been brought here by jumping after Control, the IA which had chased Christopher Pike across different universes because it needed something from his brain (what exactly? that doesn’t seem to be clear). He knew that Sylvia had followed Chris for much longer than he had been aware of in an attempt to protect him from that IA (it should be creepy, but he was aware that she only meant to be his guardian angel, and the way she had insisted and apologized about that in the same breath was rather cute). Now that Control was destroyed, Sylvia had no way back to her own universe since the IA had been the one knowing how to jump between realities.

“With a dash of time traveling.” Because, obviously, she wasn’t as young as his student, Cadet Sylvia Tilly; he would have noticed that (it was bad enough that he had needed so long to recognize the similarities, regardless of how discreet the cadet could be).

“Well, Sir... When you have broken the barrier between universes, what’s a little time traveling on top?” she joked with an awkward chuckle. “Also, I’m not sure those kind of travels are very precise you know, although I can’t say because it was all Control’s doing helped by the Sphere data — you know about that? I talked about it to the others, but… yes? okay. So, yeah, time travel, hi young me, but no, not really, because I made sure to stay away from that mess, of course. That’s, like, basic time travel etiquette.”

Chris had needed some time to take all of this in, but now he had a few pressing questions. “Did we know each other in your universe?"

“You were my Captain for a few months on the USS Discovery,” she explained. “One of the best I had… But nothing happened between us! I mean, obviously, because you were the Captain and I was just an Ensign, like fifteen years younger than you and much less interesting and also…” She stopped and gestured at her mouth. “... always like that.” She cleared her throat, rubbed her palms on her thighs and sighed. “Sorry, I’m usually better, but the babbling comes back when I’m nervous.”

He smiled, amused. “Am I making you nervous?”

She rolled her eyes. “Duh.”

He chuckled. “All right. Why am I making you nervous?”

“I don’t want you to hate me,” she blurted out. “I really didn’t want to hurt you in any way, but you came up to me and I… I have had a crush on you since the Academy, certainly not helped by that time you were a really, really nice Captain, so you kinda derailed my plans to not interact and, really, this is totally on you. You can’t expect a girl to say no to Christopher Pike chatting them up.”

He grinned and leaned back in his chair, now beyond amused. “Oh, really?”

She nodded. “Really!”

“I have been told no before,” he pointed out playfully.

“They were either taken, not into men or completely mad, Sir,” she informed him very seriously.

“An interesting take. I’ll ask Kat in which category she falls into.”

“Admiral Cornwell?!” Sylvia swore and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Don’t tell her I said that, please.”

“Too late, she’s watching,” he revealed while pointing out at a mirror.

Sylvia leaned toward it with a sheepish smile and waved. “I totally didn’t imply you were mad! You’re one of the best, sanest people I know, and you’re a role-model to me! So sorry!”

“Apology accepted” came the answer from the loudspeaker. It contained a hint of amusement.

Sylvia relaxed.

“So,” Chris started, trying to get the conversation back on track, “you’re stuck here. That must have been hard to accept. You sacrificed your way home by killing Control.”

She shrugged. “I knew from the start I had no other choice. It’s not like...” She stopped, rubbed her face and shifted in her uncomfortable chair. “It’s not like I had much left in my universe.”

“That bad?”

“Control killed most of my friends, my crew...” She intertwined her fingers and stared at them without seeing them, lost in memories of the dead.

“No family?”

“None I’m close to anyway.” She looked up and smiled shakily to convince the tears not to fall. “So, you see, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is to us,” Chris replied kindly. “I owe you. Starfleet owe you. So, your name… ‘Lily Burnham’, do you want to keep it? Changing to ‘Tilly’ might be a bit obvious, but we could slip in a ‘Sylvia’ in there. Lily Sylvia Burnham? Sylvia Lily Burnham? What do you think?”

“What? Wait, what? What are you saying? Because I have some idea of what you’re saying, but I want to be sure I’m not—”

“I’m saying that you’re cleared. You’ll be freed after this conversation and a new identity created for you, an official, complete one, not your smokescreen. For that, we need to know what you want, though. If you want to get your job back in Starfleet for example, Commander.”

“Heck, yes!”

 

oOo

 

Lieutenant Commander Lily Sylvia Burnham got her first posting on Starbase 33. In between words of thanks to Christopher for pulling strings so she could accomplish her dream, they talked of anything and everything. They talked until there were no more doubts that their interest in each other was genuine. They never lied to each other but only admitted that they didn’t wish — or couldn’t — talk about something. It was an unspoken understanding that for trust to settle after their rocky start, there couldn’t be any more lies.  

After six months in space, she was called back to Earth to work in the research center of San Francisco with a genius, a genius with a mad idea, named Paul Stamets.

“I’m bound to mess up. If not at the first second I see him, then for sure afterwards,” she admitted to Chris in the taxi that brought them from her apartment where he had fetched her to whatever he had planned.

Chris reached for her hand and intertwined their fingers. “I’m sure you’ll charm him well enough that he won’t notice a thing.”

“I hope so… Wait, was that a compliment?”

Instead of replying, Chris lifted their hands to his lips and kissed her fingers with a soft smirk. She blushed and cleared her throat.

“Anyway. Where are we going?” She smoothed her ivory dress. “You said to dress up but not why.”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? I’m taking you on a date. You owe me one.”

“I do?”

“For blocking my calls after giving me your contact.”

She started to speak, stopped and raised the index of her free hand. “Fair enough. You could have said that when you told me to dress up though.”

“You look great,” he said reassuringly.

She carefully touched her curly hair tucked into a bun. Her natural red was growing back, giving her a gradation from red to strawberry blond which was rather fetching, if she could say so herself. “Do you like the hair?”

“I love the hair,” he replied with a fond smile. “You look fierce and dignified.”

“Oh, good. That… sounds good.”

The taxi stopped in front of a restaurant. Chris got out first and offered his hand to Lily, who pulled on her short dress with the other hand, grumbling. When she got out though, she froze and looked to the other side of the street.

“Lily?” He followed her stare to a public park.

“This is where I arrived,” she murmured.

“Arrived?”

“When I arrived in this universe, that’s where we landed, in the middle of the night. Control was… true to itself, I guess, and left immediately, jumping over the closed gate without noticing me, the stowaway. I had landed in a bush.” She chuckled and turned toward Chris. “I had leaves and twigs tangled in my hair. I threw up on a rose bush and got scratches on my face because of the thorns… I was a mess. I had to wait until morning for the gates to be opened.” She sighed and shook her head. “But never mind that.” She reached for his forearm and pressed herself to his side. “Food, right?!”

Chris led them inside. They were settled face to face at a square table hidden between two large flower pots. It was a nice restaurant, not too upscale for them to be uncomfortable, but of good reputation. Chris had thought this through, but of course, there was always something (how did he manage to choose the restaurant which would bring back difficult memories to his date? he knew he had bad luck in romance, but still).

After giving back their menus to the waitress and waiting for her to be far enough, Chris leaned forward to caught Lily’s attention. She was distracted, her pretty blue eyes unfocused.

“Lily.”

“Yeah?” She shook her head. “I mean, sorry, yes?”

“Did I tell you how awesome you are?”

The question threw her for a loop. She gaped for a brief moment before chuckling nervously, expecting a joke. “No. Why? What are you talking about?”

“You, who lost members of your crew, friends and family to you, who fought for years a deadly enemy, who jumped after a murderous AI in a wormhole, perfectly aware you wouldn’t be able to go back to your own world, and who proceeded on your self-appointed mission to make sure that AI couldn’t hurt anyone else… at all cost. You made incredible sacrifices, Lily. And still, you are here, with me, smiling and laughing, determined and passionate, moving forward, always… You’re amazing.”

Her bottom lip wobbled, and she pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a whimper. She blinked repeatedly to keep the tears from falling and then managed to let out a weak: “I’m just a mess inside.”

“I’m pretty sure most of us are a mess inside,” he replied kindly and honestly. He had his own demons, like most people he knew. “What matter is if you let it spill on the rest of your life or not.” He reached for her hand, brushing her fingers tenderly. “It’s just a fact that you’re an incredible mess.”

She let out a snort and started to lose the fight against her tears. She pulled back and stood up. “So-sorry, I just…” She hurried toward the toilets without being able to finish her sentence.

Chris hesitated, but he followed more sedately. At the door to the ladies room, he could hear Lily sobbing. He wasn’t the only one: another woman with asian features was frozen, clearly hesitant to walk in.

“Sorry,” he told her, “my girlfriend needs a moment. Gives us a minute?” When she nodded in understanding, he gave her a charming smile. “Thanks.” He stepped inside.

Lily was standing in front of a wide mirror, folded in two with her elbows on the fake marble countertop between two sinks so her hands covered her face. She was shaking. Chris put a hand on her back and rubbed gently.

“I should have guessed you were keeping everything bottled inside when Kat told me to keep an eye on you.” The vice admiral had been Lily’s therapist by virtue of being the only one high-ranked enough to know the whole story. Of course, their sessions were protected by medical confidentiality, but Chris should have gotten the hint.

He rubbed her back in circles patiently, murmuring soothing words, until she straightened and turned into his hold, pressing her face against his jacket, her arms around his chest. The sobs had calmed down, the tears were quieter and the sniffles irregular. Chris held her until she relaxed completely. At a particular sniffle which sounded embarrassed, he smiled softly. “Feeling better?”

She nodded but stayed quiet.

“Do you want me to leave you to freshen up?”

She nodded again but kept her face pressed to his jacket.

“All right. Take your time.” He disengaged slowly, letting his hand brush her bare forearms tenderly. He left without trying to see her face. The asian woman was still waiting in the hallway, but she looked at him with a bit of awe. “Thank you for waiting. You can go ahead.”

While he went back to their table, he missed the way this client stepped in the toilets, offered her make-up bag to Lily and breathed in envy: “Your boyfriend is so nice.”

“I know,” Lily replied while removing her running mascara. “There is one of a kind by universe.”

“Damn. You’re lucky to have caught him. Don’t let go.”

Lily looked after her thoughtfully and then stared at her pink face and poofy hair. “I’m an incredible mess,” she murmured, insisting unintentionally on the last word. She straightened, squared her shoulders and repeated more fiercely: “I’m an incredible mess!” She nodded and pulled on her dress. “I’m an incredible mess, and I’m going on a date with the man of my dreams.” She smiled proudly. “You would be impressed, Michael.”

Her smile became nostalgic, but she stayed calm. She had come to accept the loss of her family, especially now that she had checked that all of them were alive and well in this dimension. Michael Burnham (a Michael who had never lost her parents) was serving as First Officer on the USS Shenzhou led by Philipa Georgiou —not a mirror version this time, her true mentor, the woman she had loved and respected. Saru and Keyla were with them. They didn’t know her (either version of her: Sylvia Tilly or Lily Burnham) of course, but they were in good hands, they were happy. She had accepted this. She had…

But it still hurt. Oh, it hurt.

Her comm beeped. She had a message from Chris. No sign of impatience though. It was a hologram. A hologram of the Helix Nebula. Her favorite. The projection lighted the bathroom in yellow, orange and blue. An audio message played at the same time:

“I’m looking at the moon outside, and I just thought… I have a favorite nebula. Your eyes.”

“Oh God,” she breathed, laughed and plastered a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God, that’s so cheesy.” She laughed freely. “I love it.”

She loved him.   

Later tonight, after a quite enjoyable date, they went back to Chris’ apartment. He had been on Earth for nearly two years now. His apartment, while not as cozy as what you would expect from someone who planned to stay indefinitely, was welcoming and felt lived-in, more so than Lily’s, who had just moved in. She took on the sight with a pleased smile and immediately went to cuddle with a pillow on the sofa. Chris raised an eyebrow. “Do you really prefer that pillow to me? I’m hurt.”

“It happens to be here when you’re not,” she pointed out.

He went to rectify this mistake. She threw the pillow to the other end of the sofa in favor of snuggling against his side. She rested her head against his shoulder with a sigh of contentment.

“Happy?” he asked while adjusting his arm around her shoulders.

“Yes,” she replied before thinking better of it and looking up to his lips.

Message received loud and clear.

Chris leaned down. Their lips brushed and then locked.

Now, it was perfect.

 

oOo

 

“Really, Cadet?” Chris raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the young man trying to read over his shoulder. 

Unabashed, Jim Kirk smiled charmingly. “Sir, I was hoping to talk to you about last lesson.”

“I’m sure you were,” Chris replied sarcastically with a shake of his head. He noticed a few of Jim’s friends watching from afar with exasperation — McCoy — or dread — Tilly.

“Yes, about—”

Chris raised his PADD and pressed the back of it to the cadet’s face to interrupt him. “Save it. What do you really want?”

Jim hesitated, evaluated his superior’s expression and decided to take a chance. “Is Nebula your girlfriend or a code for some classified project which might or might not be linked to that mess last year with the Philipa Georgiou lookalike?”

“Cadet, if it was classified, I—”

“—Wouldn’t tell, yeah I know, hence why I’m trying to find by myself, but Sir if you’d just tell me if I’m right about that lookalike being an IA, I’d let it go.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he admitted without hesitation, “but I would give you half of my bet winnings.”

Chris shook his head and walked toward the research center. “Let it go, Kirk. It has been a year.”

“I can’t. It’s eating me up inside, Sir.”

“Your damn curiosity and stubbornness will be the end of you. You know that, right?”

Jim nodded solemnly. “Yep. So, is your girlfriend named Nebula?”

“No.”

Chris’ communicator beeped. He raised it to his ear. “I’m waiting next to the solar system sculpture…” He turned around and looked over his shoulder. “Yes, I see you.” He closed his comm and put it back in his pocket.

“Was that your girlfriend?” Jim tried to identify who he was talking to and waiting for. The only one he could see was a sweet-looking woman with a coppery cloud in lieu of hair.

Chris turned nonchalantly toward Jim. “Fiancée, actually, and nebula is her pet name.” He walked away toward Lily, throwing over his shoulder: “And for being such a busybody, Cadet: no, you’re not invited to the wedding.”

Jim spread his hands. “I’d be the best groomsman ever, Sir!”

“I think you meant to say ‘the worst’, Kirk!”

Chris reached Lily and turned her around before Jim could get a good look at her. He was convinced that the little genius would one day notice the likeness between Lily and Tilly, especially now that the kid was interested in his fiancée, but that was something that he was willing to delay for as long as possible.

“What was that?” Lily asked, trying to glance over her shoulder.

“Nothing,” Chris replied, pressing her to his side with an arm around her waist. He stared at her cloudy hair. “Again?”

Lily shrugged. “Paul forgot to warn me about his experiment, again, and I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble to tame it… You said you liked it.”

He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “I love it, my sweet nebula.”

She beamed. “Good, because I don’t have the time to fight with it. I looked into what you asked me. The ship which attacked the USS Kelvin? Definitely time travel. The ship signature is one of a kind. I think, no, I know I can track it.”

Pike stopped and stared. “Really?”

“Really.”

“... Commander, may I kiss you silly?”

She giggled and grinned. “Permission granted, Captain Pike.”

He stepped forward, cupped her cheeks and kissed her until they saw stars.

Chris loved the stars dearly, but he might have found something —someone— even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tilly on a date was inspired by [this look of Mary Wiseman.](http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Therese+Raquin+Broadway+Opening+Night+Opening+zJR533s5JRVx.jpg)
> 
> Tilly will save the day in her new universe and everyone will live happily ever after (or else...). :3  
> Thank you so much for the encouraging comments on the first chapter. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at: https://lunaemoth.tumblr.com/


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